My cousin Bill Magie, Jr., sent me this YouTube video about Dunnottar Castle. It shows the prison where, ten generations ago, my ancestor John McGhie awaited his banishment to the New Jersey Plantations “for refusing to join the Episcopalian Church.” An ironic forebear for an Episcopal priest!
Born around 1659 in the Galloway district of southwest Scotland, John McGhie was a staunch Presbyterian. He joined an outlaw band of Covenanters who refused to acknowledge James II of England as the head of the Church of Scotland. Eventually John was arrested, imprisoned, and banished to the Colonies in December 1685. He died in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), New Jersey in 1735.
John and his wife, Ann, had six children, and their fourth, Joseph (1706-1783), married Margaret Williams (1711-1783). She was the great-great-granddaughter of Matthew Williams (1606-1679), who moved to Massachusetts from Wales (via Scotland) in 1635. Matthew was a descendent of Sir Richard Williams (1481-1556), great-grandfather of Oliver Cromwell. (It pleases me to know there’s Welsh blood on my mother’s side as well as my dad’s; less pleasant that Old Ironsides is part of the mix.)
Joseph and Margaret’s grandson Ezekiel (1758-1826) fought in the Revolutionary War with the Continental Army (his oldest brother John was killed), and later in the War of 1812 with the New Jersey Militia (2nd Regiment).
Slàinte mhòr!
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